Porridge

🇮🇷Iran

Halim

حلیم

Wheat and turkey or lamb beaten together for hours into a smooth, savoury porridge, served for breakfast with cinnamon, sugar and melted butter.

🇮🇷Iran

Halim Bademjan

حلیم بادمجان

A Persian eggplant and wheat porridge slow-cooked with lamb, garlic and mint, a rustic northern Iranian dish, similar to halim but with aubergine.

🇦🇲Armenia

Harissa

Հարիսա

Skinned wheat and chicken cooked together for many hours and beaten until the grain and meat dissolve into a single thick, savoury porridge.

🇬🇭Ghana

Hausa Koko

Fermented millet porridge spiced with ginger, chilli, cloves and pepper, drunk hot from a bowl at breakfast.

🇯🇲Jamaica

Hominy Corn Porridge

Hominy

A traditional Jamaican breakfast porridge of dried hominy corn simmered with coconut milk, condensed milk, nutmeg and cinnamon, of Taíno origin.

🇷🇼Rwanda

Igikoma

Thin porridge made from sorghum or maize flour, cooked with water or milk into a drinkable consistency; eaten for breakfast, sometimes sweetened with sugar; called 'the wonder dish' in Rwandan media for its nutritional value.

🇸🇿Eswatini

Incwancwa

Sour, fermented maize porridge with a thin, drinkable consistency and a tangy bite.

🇮🇩Indonesia

Indonesian Chicken Porridge

Bubur Ayam

Indonesian rice porridge with shredded chicken, fried shallots, and various condiments, popular breakfast.

🇰🇷Jeju, South Korea

Jeju Abalone Porridge

제주 전복죽

Jeju abalone porridge: rice cooked slowly with sliced abalone into a savoury, ocean-sweet congee.

🇹🇭Thailand

Jok

โจ๊ก

Thai rice congee with pork balls, ginger, garlic, and a soft-boiled egg, a breakfast staple.

🇧🇧Barbados

Jug-Jug

Guinea corn and pigeon peas cooked down with salt meat and herbs into a thick green-brown mash, made only at Christmas and traced to Scottish settlers' haggis.

🇨🇮Côte d'Ivoire

Kabato

Millet or maize flour cooked into a firm paste in the north of the country, the savanna answer to the southern cassava staples.

🇫🇮Finland

Kama Grain Mix

Kama / Talkkuna

Traditional prepared with roasted and finely milled oat, rye, barley, and pea flour, blended with dairy products.

🇧🇫Burkina Faso

Kan Kan Kan

A Burkinabè dish of millet or sorghum, cooked into a thick, starchy porridge served with sauce.

🇮🇳Jammu and Kashmir, India

Kashmiri Hareesa

ہریسہ

Mutton pounded with wheat and cooked overnight into a smooth, pale paste, topped with hot ghee and eaten in the winter before dawn.

🇸🇨Seychelles

Kat-Kat Banann

Creole porridge of mashed green bananas (or plantains) and shredded fish fillets cooked in fresh coconut milk; the plantain is simmered, mashed, and combined with shredded fish, with subtle hints of ginger and garlic; typically accompanied by chili and rice; a traditional Seychellois comfort food.

🇯🇵Japan

Kayu

粥

Okayu, rice porridge cooked thin and eaten plain or with umeboshi, is a named Japanese dish with a fixed cultural role in illness and in the seven-herb New Year rite.

🇬🇭Ghana

Kenkey

Kom

Fermented corn dough part-cooked, wrapped in corn husks or plantain leaves and steamed into dense, sour balls.

🇮🇳Karnataka, India

Khara Bath

खारा बाथ

A savory semolina dish from Karnataka, similar to upma but spiced with vangibath powder. It is part of the Chow Chow Bath combo.

🇦🇿Azerbaijan

Khashil

Xəşil

Flour cooked into a stiff paste with water, spread on a plate with a well of melted butter and syrup or honey in the middle.

🇮🇳India

Khichdi

खिचड़ी

A comfort dish of rice and lentils cooked together, often with vegetables and mild spices. It is considered healing and easy to digest.

🇮🇳India

Khichu

ખીચુ

A Gujarati snack of steamed rice flour dough seasoned with cumin and green chilies. It is soft and served with oil.

🇹🇬Togo

Kokonte

Dried cassava milled into flour and cooked into a stiff, dark grey-brown staple, nicknamed face-the-wall.

🇹🇬Togo

Kokonte

A Togolese brown cassava-flour swallow cooked into a firm dough and served with soup.

🇬🇷Greece

Koliva

Κόλυβα

Ritual wheat/poppy/honey memorial porridge

🇲🇼Malawi

Kondowole

A sticky, very stiff cassava-flour porridge from northern Malawi, stirred vigorously until tough and elastic; resembles nsima but has a more neutral, chewy character and is normally eaten with fish.

🇬🇭Ghana

Konkonte

A dark cassava-flour dough cooked into a Ghanaian swallow and eaten with soup.

🇧🇾Polesia, Belarus

Kulaga

Кулага

Rye-flour and berry pudding from Polesia: cranberries or viburnum stewed sweet-tart and thickened to a set.

🇺🇦Ukraine

Kulish

Куліш

Kulish is Ukrainian Cossack millet porridge cooked with meat, onions, and salo over a field fire.

🇧🇾Belarus

Kutsia

Куцця

Whole wheat or barley grains boiled soft and dressed with honey, poppy-seed milk, nuts and dried fruit — the first dish of the Christmas Eve table.

🇹🇷Black Sea Region, Turkey

Kuymak

Cornmeal whisked into butter and melting cheese until it turns to a stretchy golden fondue, the Black Sea highlands' answer to winter — eaten with fresh bread and cornmeal crumbles.

🇳🇿New Zealand

Kānga Pirau

Whole maize cobs steeped in running water for weeks until fermented, then boiled into a sour porridge with cream and sugar.

🇭🇹Haiti

Labouyi Bannann

Green plantain grated to a purée and cooked with milk, cinnamon, star anise and salt into a thick breakfast porridge.

🇪🇭Western Sahara

Labsis

Labsis is a named Sahrawi barley-flour preparation, toasted and mixed with liquid and fat into a dense porridge eaten as a sustaining pastoral food.

🇳🇬Nigeria

Lafun

A Nigerian white swallow made from fermented cassava flour, smoother and lighter than fufu, served with soups like gbegiri, ewedu or obe ata.

🇲🇷Mauritania

Lakh

Laax

Coarse millet porridge cooked thick and served cold under sour milk and sugar, sometimes with a peanut and baobab sauce.